100 YEARS AGO

Further particulars of the work and position of the National Antarctic Expedition have been brought by the New Zealand mail... The chief scientific work accomplished by the expedition is summarised as follows:—(1) The discovery of an extensive land at the east extremity of the great ice barrier. (2) The discovery that MacMurdo Bay is not a “bay,” but a strait, and that Mounts Erebus and Terror form part of a comparatively small island. (3) The discovery of good winter quarters in a high latitude — viz. 77° 50′ S., 166° 42′ E. — with land close by suitable for the erection of the magnetic observatories, &c. The lowest temperature experienced was 92° of frost Fahrenheit. (4) An immense amount of scientific work over twelve months in winter quarters, principally physical and biological. (5) Numerous and extensive sledge journeys in the spring and summer, covering a good many thousand miles, of which the principal is Captain Scott's journey, upon which a latitude of 82° 17′ south was attained, and an immense tract of new land discovered and charted as far as 83° 30′ south, with peaks and ranges of mountains as high as 14,000 feet... As the Discovery has not returned to Lyttelton, there is little doubt that the expedition has been forced to spend a third winter in the Antarctic.

From Nature 7 May 1903.

50 YEARS AGO

In June 1952 the crew of a fisheries patrol boat cruising in Miramichi Bay, New Brunswick, observed what they took for a sand-bar in an unexpected situation. On closer inspection they found that there was no such bar, but that the surface of the sea over a wide area was in a state of violent turmoil (“a sort of boiling”) due to the presence of enormous numbers of polychaetes. The area covered was some 150 yards in radius and was broken up into several minor patches... The polychaetes involved were the heteronereid forms (both sexes) of Nereis succinea (Leuckart). This is the first record of that species from eastern Canadian waters, though it is known from the eastern coast of the United States, usually under the name Nereis limbata Ehlers... We know of no other case of the swarming of a nereid with such activity and in such concentrated masses as occurred in this instance.

From Nature 9 May 1953.